If May loses Queen’s Speech vote it will be impossible for her to cling on

THERESA May might be a “bloody difficult woman”, but the DUP’s Sir Jeffrey Donaldson made clear the good folk of Ulster are “no push-over” either.

It might strike some as strange that given the stakes are so high that the Queen’s Speech came and went without the Downing Street fanfare that a deal had finally been struck with the Democratic Unionists to turn a minority government into a majority one thanks to the help of Arlene Foster and her chums.

However, the key moment arrives on Thursday when MPs have to vote on the Queen’s Speech; the slimmed-down programme for government. What happens if, for whatever reason, the Prime Minister’s charms have not worked on the tough types of the DUP?

Technically, Mrs May could seek to soldier on but in the face of a humiliating rejection of her government prospectus, this would be politically difficult if not impossible to pull off. In the past, such a move would have been regarded as a vote of no confidence in HM Government and an election would follow.

But we now have the Fixed Term Parliament Act and the power to call a snap election now rests with Parliament.

Under the Act there are just two ways to do this; either two-thirds of all MPs must vote for one or the Government must lose a vote of confidence and 14 days must pass without the successful creation of a new one.

Yet what happens if Mrs May, having not secured a deal with Ms Foster, loses next Thursday’s vote and jumps or, more likely, is

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has made clear the good folk of Ulster are ‘no push-over’.

pushed? The Tories might think they could stumble on with a new leader, who just might be able to cobble together a quick deal with the DUP.

Labour would undoubtedly table a no confidence motion; their tails are up and they believe they would win a second snap election.

If the Speaker, the three Deputy Speakers[still to be elected] and Sinn Fein’s seven MPs are taken out of the parliamentary arithmetic, the Tories have 316 votes to the 323 of the opposing parties.

But with the support of the DUP’s 10 MPs, the Tories would have 326 and the opposing parties 313; a working majority of 13.